road maps

We are terrified of the painful grief that is hot to touch, sharp or piercing, so we keep moving, faster and faster, so we will not feel how sad we are, how much we have lost in this life: strength, youthful playfulness, so many friends and lovers, dreams that did not come true, all that have passed away. When we stop even for a moment, we can feel the burning, empty hole in our belly. So we keep moving, afraid the empty fire of loss will consume us. – Wayne Muller

In today’s world, we are scurrying from place to place. We’ve got to get here, we’ve got to get there, and we have no room for error – can’t get lost and most definitely can’t be late. To help navigate our travel, we’ve relied on physical maps, embraced the move of technology with the use of map quest, and now we have the ability to travel almost anywhere right at our finger tips. Our phones today are equipped with applications that make traveling very easy. The Google maps application allows you to:

Explore a new city

Go on an “off-road” adventure

Assist in driving to a new place

This app is pretty much right on track too, and very rarely do I get lost when using it. This app is tech savvy too. All you have to do is let the phone search for your current location, type the address or name of your end destination, and off you go. This little red pin will guide you, maneuvering you through the streets, towards your destination.

I love convenience and I love simplicity. I use to live a life of simplicity – key word being use to. I would work out, go to work, go to Church, socialize with friends and family, spend time writing and blogging, and traveling. For the most part it was simple – easy come easy go. Life had its bumps in the road for sure, but the flat could easily be fixed, and I was well on my way again. I liked it. I loved it actually.

A few months back, my Pastor preached a message about 5 steps to becoming an effective Christian. For the life of me, I cannot remember all the steps only the last one, which is the most important – crazy/radical. I was not radical or crazy in my walk with God. For the record, I was not radical or crazy period. I was structured, confined, and rigid. Crazy was no where in my vocabulary.

His message inspired me to shake loose the chains that grappled me, let my hair down, and get a little crazy. Without hesitation, I marched right up to the altar and actually prayed for crazy. Looking back, I’m not so sure why I uttered those words so freely. I guess in the place I was at, I was tired of being so guarded, so rigid, and so methodical. I wanted to completely abandon my ways. I was desperate for change.

Guess what? That is exactly where that little red pin lead me – right into chaos, right into crazy town. My once quiet life has been uprooted, filled with complication. It is loud and messy too. It awakens me in the middle of the night in a cry for help. It yells, it challenges me, and it drives me out of my comfort zone. “Wait a minute”, I screamed. “I did not sign up for this?” “This is not the direction I wanted to go.” Oh but wait, I did, remember? The altar a few months ago.

Heed my warning, be careful what you pray for 🙂

So, here I am – sitting in the chaos – unable to move or recalibrate my direction of travel. I keep trying to type in a new end destination, but my app is not working. On occasion, I’ve pleaded, cried out to God for Him to get me out of this situation. Yet, He doesn’t. He said I must ride it out, and as painful and uncomfortable as it is, it is only temporary. There will be a bend in the road soon.

Up until this present moment, I have been guilty of hustling through life. I’ve spent my whole life running from one place to the next trying to escape the present. The present is where you get hurt and where you have to deal with things. I thought if I kept moving, I could escape the hurt and not have to feel anything. As Wayne Muller so accurately described, I was terrified of the pain. So, I kept moving faster and faster to not have to feel or think about what I lost through all the years of my life.

If you were to ask me if I truly wanted to leave this chaotic state, my answer would actually be no. I’ve grown accustom to chaos and I’m getting good at just being and hanging in the moment. This place of chaos has shown me that my life before was boring and stale, and I was only living a fraction of the one life that I have. I sure don’t want to bring my life any injustice.

I am learning too that the empty fire of loss does not actually consume us. It burns out any impurities and allows us to grow and move into a place never traveled before – passionate, nonsensical, wild, bizarre, and crazy love.